Skip to main content

Set up Continuous Error Tracking (CET)

This topic describes how to add a monitored service in Harness and install an Error Tracking Agent on a JVM to identify and troubleshoot faults and exceptions in your code.

Add a monitored service

A Harness Monitored Service is a combination of service and environment. Harness monitors the following via a monitored service:

  • Code-level exceptions and errors from the data collected by the Error Tracking Agent.
  • Changes such as deployments, incidents such as PagerDuty, and infrastructure changes such as Kubernetes events and auditing.
  • Health trend deviations using logs and metrics obtained from the APM and logging tools.

The following steps explain how to create a monitored service, and define service and environments for tracking code errors and exceptions:

  1. In your Harness project, navigate to the Continuous Error Tracking module, and then select Monitored Services.

  2. Select + New Monitored Service.

    The Create New Monitored Service page appears.

  3. Select a service. A Service represents your microservices and other workloads. To add a new service:

    1. Select + Add New.
    2. In the New Service dialog, enter a name for the service, optional tag, and optional description, and then select Save.
  4. Select an environment where the Harness Service is deployed (QA, prod, and so on). To create a new environment:

    1. Select + Add New.
    2. In the Create Environment dialog, enter a name for the new environment, select an environment type such as production or pre-production, and then select Save.

    Harness auto creates the monitored service name by combining the service and environment names that you have entered.

  5. Select Save.

    The new monitored service appears on the Monitored Services page.

Create a token for the Error Tracking Agent

To create a token, do the following:

  1. Expand PROJECT SETUP and then select Tokens.

  2. On the Code Error Settings page, select Generate New Token.

    Create Token

  3. In the New Token dialog, enter a name for the token and select Generate.

    A new authentication token is generated and displayed in the Key field.

  4. Copy the token to clipboard. This token is used in the Error Tracking Agent configuration file.

    Generate new token

  5. Select Close.

    The newly created token is added to the list of tokens.

note

You can copy the token anytime by selecting the clipboard icon.

Install an Error Tracking Agent

The Harness Error Tracking Agent must be installed on a Java application to capture application code and variables. This native agent library is attached to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM)/Common Language Runtime (CLR) during runtime. It can be deployed into any Kubernetes container without altering the image. The Agent fingerprints the program code loaded into the JVM/CLR and captures the complete state of the code and the host/container in order to identify anomalies.

This topic provides details about:

  • Compatibility and requirements to install an Error Tracking Agent.
  • Latest releases
  • Steps to install an Error Tracking Agent on a Java Application.

Compatibility and requirements

To learn about supported operating systems such as Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and JVM containers, go to Continuous Error Tracking Agent compatibility.

Latest releases

OSDownload Link
LinuxDownload
AlpineDownload
GravitonDownload
WindowsDownload
AIXDownload

Install an Error Tracking Agent

Depending on your setup and needs, there are multiple ways to install and deploy an Error Tracking Agent on a Java application. You can install the Agent to monitor your application in the following ways:

  • As a standalone installation outside Harness.
  • By modifying your Docker image.
  • Using an init container.

If you have additional agents running on your application, the Error Tracking Agent should appear at the end of the VM arguments list before specifying the main class or jar.

This option lets you install the Error Tracking Agent as a standalone. Perform the following steps to install the Agent:

  1. Download the latest version of the Agent from here.

  2. Extract this version to a folder of your choice. For example/home/user. The contents of the archive will be inside a folder named Harness. You'll require the path to the Agent when starting your application. An example for the Agent path would be, /home/user/harness/lib/libETAgent.so.

  3. Add JVM arguments which instruct the JVM to load the Agent.

    This is done by adding -agentpath:/home/user/harness/lib/libETAgent.so to the application startup. For example:

    java -agentpath:/home/user/harness/lib/libETAgent.so -jar yourapp.jar.

    This parameter can also be specified using JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS. For example:

    export JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS=-agentpath:/home/user/harness/lib/libETAgent.so.

  4. Set the Agent environment variables so that your application can map to a Harness Service.

    Required Environment VariableDescriptionExample
    ET_COLLECTOR_URLURL to the Error Tracking collector.https://collector.et.harness.io/prod1
    ET_APPLICATION_NAMEName of your application or Service.myapp
    ET_DEPLOYMENT_NAMEDeployment or version number of your application or Service. When your application or Service is updated to a new version, it's recommended that you update this variable as well, so that the Error Tracking Agent can identify when new errors are introduced.1
    ET_ENV_IDID of your Harness Environment.production
    ET_TOKENET Agent Token created on Harness.b34*****-****-****-****-***********42a

    For example:

ENV ET_COLLECTOR_URL=https://collector.et.harness.io/prod1/
ENV ET_APPLICATION_NAME=yourapp
ENV ET_DEPLOYMENT_NAME=1
ENV ET_ENV_ID=env1
ENV ET_TOKEN=b34*****-****-****-****-***********42a
  1. Restart your application after installing the Error Tracking Agent.
note

If you are using the Self-Managed Enterprise Edition, make sure to set the ET_COLLECTOR_URL to your Load Balancer URL. For instance, if your Helm value is loadbalancerURL: https://example.harness.io/, then set the ET_COLLECTOR_URL as ET_COLLECTOR_URL=https://example.harness.io/et-collector.

Verify Agent connection

After installing Error Tracking Agent, you should verify that it is connected to Harness. To verify the Error Tracking Agent connection, do the following:

  1. Expand PROJECT SETUP and then select Agents.

    A comprehensive list of Error Tracking Agents is displayed along with the information such as service name, environment, deployment version, Agent version, Agent status, token name, and so on. Ensure that the Agent that you installed is listed, and the status is CONNECTED.

Next steps

Identify and prioritize error events using Events dashboard.